The present invention relates to slings for shoulder weapons, and particularly for military tactical weapons.
It is usually desirable to use a sling to carry a military shoulder weapon so it is quickly available and ready for use while leaving a soldier's hands free for performing other tasks when the weapon is not actually in use.
Many military rifle slings have been known in the past, and some of them have been designed to be lengthened readily from a length best adapted for carrying the weapon to a length best for using the weapon while in a particular position. Usually, a sling permits a weapon to be raised to a soldier's preferred shoulder. Depending on the locality of a target with respect to a structure behind which a soldier can be partially concealed, however, in some cases it is necessary for a soldier to shoot with the weapon at his opposite, non-preferred shoulder. Preferably, the soldier should be able to move the weapon to the non-preferred shoulder without having to disengage the sling from his body, but to do so may require that the sling be lengthened.
Some previously available slings for shoulder weapons have included a first or inner strap extending along one side or the other of the weapon from its buttstock to its forestock. A second strap that passes around the soldier's body, usually over one shoulder, is fastened to the first strap near the forestock of the weapon, but with its front end releasable to slide rearward along the first strap to give the soldier the additional freedom required to raise the weapon to the non-preferred shoulder. In such slings the first strap, extending closely alongside the weapon, can interfere with operation of the weapon, and the second strap portion of the sling, when released to slide along the inner strap, extends more closely around the body of the soldier, increasing the difficulty of removing the weapon quickly should that be required. Previously available devices for releasing and reengaging the sliding end of the second strap have been less than desirably easy to operate, particularly for a soldier wearing gloves.
Arrangements for attaching the rear end of a sling to a rifle buttstock at a location separated from an installed sling swivel have been cumbersome and complicated.
One such previously available sling is a tactical weapons sling available from Safety Systems Corporation of Hanover Park, Ill. That sling includes an enlargement at one point along a first or inner sling strap, and a quick release plate is ordinarily held by sling strap tension in an orientation in which the quick release plate cannot move along the inner sling strap past the enlargement.
A carbine sling available from Boonie Packer Products division of JFS, Inc. of Salem, Oreg., utilizes a piece of flexible strapping which becomes doubled-over and jams behind a slide to keep a front end of a sling strap in the usual configuration. The doubled loop of strapping must be pulled forward from the slide to release the movable front end to slide along the inner sling strap, but this requires a significant pull toward the front end of the weapon, causing a slight delay before the sliding front end of the sling can be moved rearwardly along the inner sling strap.